Lieberman: Ayalon's 'Palestine' Statement is a U-Turn

Former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman accused his former deputy, Danny Ayalon, of a lack of integrity, in a Saturday television interview. Ayalon said earlier in the day that the Foreign Ministry under Lieberman "speaks loudly and carries a mini carrot."

Until Ayalon learned that he was excluded from the Yisrael Beytenu list for the next Knesset, Lieberman told Channel 2, "he had only praise for his superior, Avigdor Lieberman. In the course of one day, after he was not included in the Knesset list, he says exactly the opposite. This is evidence regarding the man and his internal integrity. These statements show that the decision not to include him in the party's list for Knesset was the right one."

Lieberman also derided Ayalon for what he said was an about face in his views regarding the Palestinian Authority.

"I suggest to you and all of the viewers, to go into Youtube and see the campaign that he led for a year, about how the Palestinian nation does not exist," Lieberman told the interviewer on Channel 2's Meet the Press.

"A person who enters a political party has to be identified ideologically with the party," he added. "You cannot change your views by 180 degrees if you are left out of the Knesset list."

It should be noted that Lieberman stated recently that the government is committed to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's Bar Ilan speech. Netanyahu presented a vision of a Palestinian state existing next to Israel in that speech.

Lieberman also said that Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid would not become foreign minister because the foreign ministry would remain in the hands of the prime minister, until Lieberman's trial ends and he can return to it.